Friday, June 21, 2013

Taking Care of My Mom . . .

Hello to all of you reading and following my blog. I hope I haven't driven anyone crazy with my recent absence from my blog, but life tends to throw curveballs wherever you go. Recently, this is due to my Mom's operation on her rotator cuff.
My Mom has a job tending to mentally handicapped adults and seniors at a home for the past five years. She enjoys taking care of them, even when they get too out-of-control. Nevertheless, she enjoys looking after others since one of her lifelong dreams was to become a nurse, but lacked all of the science and biology training to become one.
Last year, on Christmas, she was working in the morning to take care of the seniors. One of the adults that she was taking care of that day was trying to plop herself into a chair like she usually does, however, she was going to miss it and fall straight onto the floor. My Mom quickly tried to stop her from landing butt first on the hard ground, but she tore her arm muscle in the process. After that, she had been on sick relief, physiotherapy and on half-days for work. It was a big shock to us when we learned what happened that day. Since then, I've been taking care of my Mom, getting things for her and doing all sorts of things to help her ease the pain.
Two weeks ago, she finally got her operation on her rotator cuff to put the muscle back in place. It was a long wait to get the surgery all fixed up for her. The operation, despite having to go to Toronto in the morning and waiting for two hours for the surgery room to be prepared, went well and they were able to get the muscle back in place. For the first week, it hurt her to move her right arm the slightest bit and she had to be on Oxycodone to help numb the pain. I was basically at her side for those first two weeks, making her food, getting her drinks, bathing her and making sure that she was comfortable and had all of her medications. The roughest part was getting her into bed, since she has to be surrounded by pillows in order for her to sleep upright. After those two weeks were over, both of us can sleep just fine (I have to wake up in the middle of the night in case she needed anything) and it became easier to dress her and bathe her. We had to get her some long stretchy dresses for her to slip on so she can go out and do things. For that week, she wanted to go out and shop some more, which called for me to drive her everywhere . . . and get critiqued on my driving constantly. I had to avoid driving on deep bumps and holes since it shook the car and caused her shoulder severe pain. After about a week and a half of that, she's now able to drive with 1 1/2 arms (I have to turn the key and shift the gears for her). It was two days ago that she got her stitches and staples out of her and her scar is healing up nice and cleanly. She's now going through some more physiotherapy for the next three weeks before she can do light service at her job.
I'll be happy to see her shoulder mend up good as new and ready to work full time again when the time comes.

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